This isn’t merely nostalgia for childhood, warmer summers, or better music. After much reflection, it’s really about the lack of distractions.
Author, Douglas Coupland spoke about his book Girlfriend in a Coma, describing his Gen X childhood. When he was a kid, he wondered what it would be like to be in a coma for a year. That way, when he woke up, he wouldn’t have to wait for that next album release, the next season of his favourite TV show, or film, or book, or whatever. He could access it all at once in one day. Being also Gen X, this makes sense to me.
But today, every day is like waking up from a coma. The sheer volume of information that is available to us every morning is staggering. And most of that information is presented to us in a manner designed to steal focus. Clickbait, that eye-catching headline, yet another imaginary Menckenian hobgoblin that politicians or activists want us to be afraid of, social media posts, new music, new recipes, instructions, directions, obligations, invitations, warnings, and so on, and so on.
Bleeps, notifications, alerts – designed, with much research, to demand as much attention as a crying baby. A sound that cannot be ignored. Aural tyranny.
In 1974, it was chimes – and they were not common. Phones rang, yes. But it was the organic sound of literally a bell. (Yes, I know, a trimphone… but few had one). Perhaps your oven timer or microwave also had a bell. And there were doorbells, and people called round much more than they ever do now. It is hard to ignore a bell. A physical bell, though, is an invitation, a reminder, a recommendation, far more than it is a demand.
And bells are fixed in place, you can avoid them.
A train journey meant your brain wasn’t being jerked about by someone’s phone notifications. You weren’t dodging phone zombies in the street. Written notifications came by letter twice a day. There were 3 channels on the TV, but BBC2 was rarely something anyone wanted to watch – so really, 2 and a bit channels.
No, I’m not a luddite. I am a fan of progress, whilst I loved the graphic design process of drawing board, letraset, type gauges, ordering typesetting, compasses, and pantone markers… laying out a page took a day, not an hour in Illustrator or inDesign. And I would not be communicating to you without that progress too. In 1974, I’d have to self publish a fanzine, or similar, to do this, and that would be expensive as well as take 20 times longer.
But for a rest, just now and then, it would be nice to go home.